The Old Republic Population Shrinking

[Beautiful End]

Fudge, that sucks because I got a free digital copy at work and I really wanna try it...as soon as I get a new, better computer.

By the time that happens, the game will be going down the same road as DC Universe Online.

*Looks at DCUO copy*

*Sigh*

 

[Starke]

I'm one of those dropped out subs, not because I'm a 'casual gamer' but because my experience with Bioware's customer support has been shocking to say the least. Living in Australia, I purchased an overseas copy and played on overseas servers. No issues, sure, peak times were like 10am and there were 5 people on when I was playing at night, but I completely understand. In that time I made 3 characters, one of which I deleted. When the option of character transfer to a new server came up I jumped at it, only to find that two of my characters (including the one I had deleted) were eligible for transfer.

Contacting customer service, I was told if I wanted the third migrated I would have to pay a fee for it... I outright refused. Not only were they happy to ruin my server 'Legacy' (a feature they touted and encouraged players to use) but in addition to my good faith in purchasing and maintaining an active subscription with an overseas server, they tried to charge me again...

I cancelled my subscription, uninstalled the game and have been happier ever since

Could be worse. At launch there were a bunch of people who, apparently, received duplicate keys. They'd crack open the box, try to register, get an error, and then get a "this key is already in use". EA customer service told them to talk to Bioware, but Bioware went on vacation after launch and stayed there through the holidays. So two weeks later, after new years Bioware stumbled back into their desks and said, "oh, right, use your product key not your preorder code because you're obviously too stupid to tell those apart."

 

[Seydaman]

Well, I really think it would've done better as a single player game. I swear, it's built more like one.

 

[TilMorrow]

Meh, I like the game and I will continue to play it. To hell with the haters.

As will I...

Same here once the Exam run is over. Around half-way through June. Don't need a great game distracting me from revision.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

Fudge, that sucks because I got a free digital copy at work and I really wanna try it...as soon as I get a new, better computer.

By the time that happens, the game will be going down the same road as DC Universe Online.

*Looks at DCUO copy*

*Sigh*

DCUO never even got to a million subscribers to begin with, I don't think it'll go quite THAT bad. 1.3 million people still is a whole lot. =p

 

[drednoahl]

I must be weird or something because I thought "wow, they've got over a million subs - that's not bad considering." To me the basic design of the game is broken; I'm not a die hard fan of Star Wars, but if I were to pay for another Star Wars RPG I expect a light sabre to act like a light sabre - cutting heads and limbs off with ease. In TOR you might as well hit things with a wiffle bat. Obviously over a million people are happy playing in a universe that doesn't follow established lore, but I'm not.

 

[Sixcess]

I must be weird or something because I thought "wow, they've got over a million subs - that's not bad considering."

Any other MMO that wasn't WoW would think the same, but tell that to John Riccitiello

"What we told folks was that this is a product that it starts to make profitability about 500,000 subs. At about 1m subs, it's a business that makes good money on an ongoing basis but it doesn't feel great about the historical investment that sort of got us here," he admitted.

"And anything north of 1m, as we approach 1.5m or 2m, starts to look like a great investment and justifies the entire purchase price of VGH stock filed in a very positive way."

source

1.5m to 2m is what EA was looking for on an ongoing basis. They've already fallen below that and they're not going to turn that around - no MMO ever has. As it stands I'd guess SWTOR is going to stabilise at closer to 500K than a million, and EA will be looking on this as a failure.

With it being so high profile and so expensive, with every piece of bad news about it having a detrimental effect on EA's share price, the future doesn't look bright for SWTOR.

 

[lapan]

It's amazing how they manage to still often have almost empty servers/planets with a total population of a million. Some serious design mistakes are involved here.

 

[Zipa]

Maybe, I have a feeling that's more LucasArts than Bioware, as they often control what constitutes canon. They did dictate that one specific playthrough of KOTOR1 was the official canon, when Bioware wanted to leave it so every version might be possible.

I don't see a Rakghoul retcon at all, AFAIK. From what I know of the mandolorians they haven't been either, I could be wrong, care to elaborate?

It may well have been Lucasarts doing it, I don't really know. I just know the end result.

Originally, the rakghoul plague was just a virus that somehow transformed sentients into rakghouls. It evolved on Taris and was just a natural part of its environment. In TOR, they seized on it and decided a Sith came up with it and released it on Taris as its initial test before never using it again for no apparent reason. Edit: Also, with the 1.1 and subsequent patches, they said that the rakghoul plague is apparently everywhere, when before it was specifically mentioned as being a Tarisian problem.

Also, Mandalorians were an actual species. A subset/evolution of human, most clearly demonstrated by the Fetts, but there's a few other places it's implied, if not explicitly stated in KOTOR 1/2. In TOR, they're a collection of every species deemed arbitrarily fit by some unspecified set of standards.

It's entirely possible that these weren't actually committed by TOR, but by some other piece of EU that I haven't seen, but they're certainly differences between KOTOR and TOR.

The mandalorians have been a cultural entity that someone from any species can belong for a long time, the whole pacifist thing was a lucas han shot first special.

 

[Casey Goddard]

For those of you who are mathematically challenged (such as editors for The Escapist) the difference between 1.7 million and 1.3 million is 400,000 (not half a million).

 

[Ham Blitz]

This is kind of funny, I just started playing the game (I got it for the 4th sale thing).

 

[iseko]

I've been playing swtor for about 2 months now. Still loving it. All they need to do to make it more interesting for me is merge the servers and make the pvp a bit better.

The reason why I think some people quit after a while is because they are 'hardcore' mmo gamers. And yea, swtor is no good for them. What I mean by this is that I play it casually. Couple of hours a day when I'm bored. It has some good stories in it and you have 8 of them. Professions for crafting that you can do on the side. Gather some good gear. Do a flashpoint or two with your friends. An operation once you're high level. Throw in some pvp when you are bored.

Off course there are only so many flashpoints/operations/pvp warzones/etc... If you play 10 hours a day (like a boss -alternatively?- no life) you will race through all that content pretty fast. I still don't have a lvl 50 character after two months. Some guys do it in a week. Yea then the content is dried up pretty fast.

The only mmo I really played besides this one is star wars galaxies (SWG). And you could do so friggin much in that game that it became to addictive for me. SWTOR is perfect. I have something to do when I'm bored but it doesn't make me want to play all the time. So it doesn't screw up my normal life. I'm not saying I'll be playing for 10 years or something. But I think at least one year, maybe two. Unless they seriously revamp the pvp. I mean now it is just maps of 8 vs 8. Some 10 second dialogue in the beginning explaining wth you are doing there. And a little old map. They have only 1 warmap that is interesting for me. Basicly you are either boarding an enemy ship or you are defending it. That feels like real war to me. But I think they should give the war a general story. At this rate it just feels pointless. It is what they are promoting their game for: the story. Yet they have ZERO of it after lvl 50. Winning or losing "war's" does F all except give you valor ranks for better pvp gear... And you cap that out pretty easy.

captcha: exceedingly well read (why thank you)

 

[LongMuckDong]

I would be happy for TOR to keep bouncing along with even a 1 million player base, if they merged servers - and keep the content flowing (which I'm sure they will do if it drops to that number).

I'm having a ball - but then again, my server has always been chocka-block packed (Dalborra - Asia/Pacific Server). If it was a ghost town 24/7, I would be having a different experience no doubt.

Love the game Bioware - make smart decisions going forward, and she'll be right mate.

cheddar.

 

[DancePuppets]

That's a real pity, I never got around to trying ToR as I still love WoW (despite currently taking a break waiting on the new content that will come with "pandaland"), but it'd be nice for there to be an actual competitor to WoW on the market. Best of luck to EA and Bioware, you never know they might be able to salvage it.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

1.3million subscribers at 15 dollars a pop is around 19.5 million.

Now what the game cost ranges from 80 million to 550 million. So I'm just going to say it was expensive. Still in a single year they will make around 200 million.

They will be fine, I will continue to play at least for now. I really dislike the whole elves, dwarves, n such that mmos seem to have I like this sci-fi theme. Plus the games not even a year old, give it some time to build upon itself.

My server "Krayt Dragon" seems to be doing ok. It seems sort of in the middle (around 250 on fleet, 60 per planet) -shrug- Once they release the 1.3 patch that supposedly improves grouping I really will run out of main things to complain about.

 

[Amnestic]

Even without the WoW comparison it's still not good. EA seem to have spent a lot of money on TOR. It doesn't matter how many subscribers you have: losing over 20% in three months is a bad thing.

Yes losing 20% in three months would be bad, unless of course the game had only been out for three months or so.

Five months.

TOR was released in December 2012. The report deals with February->April.

Australia's an exception. It's been out just over two months there, but since the 1.7mil number was quoted as February, it means that even with a possible Australian surge, they still ended up with a net 400k loss. Anyone at EA/Bioware who isn't concerned about this is an idiot.

Obviously we'll need to wait for the next May->July report to see whether this trend continues or reverses, but for now it's of extreme interest. It doesn't matter how big/small a game you are, 23.5% is always a significant number.

Yea then the content is dried up pretty fast.

At this point in the history of the MMO genre, there's no excuse for not knowing this. No matter how long you think it'll take people to hit max level, your playerbase will always do it faster and if you don't have sufficient content they'll get bored and leave. You can see this pattern during the end of WoW expansions where the top tier instance and current pvp season has been going for months and months, people are sick to death of it and they're waiting for the next expansion. They'll end up dropping their subscription for a few months until the pre-expansion event rolls around. Or not at all. They may have moved on to something else by then.

And as your game goes on, more and more people will hit max level, get bored, and leave. You need something to keep them around. I can't exactly point at EA/Bioware for making this mistake. WoW still makes it (we've been on 4.3 for how long?). Apparently DCUO made it.

 

[Andronicus]

I have yet to find an MMO that captures my interest, even a F2P one. Far as I'm concerned, the one that does will be crowned victor in the world of MMO's, statistics be damned. TOR did not do this, and thus has failed. Back to single player.

 

[4173]

Maybe, I have a feeling that's more LucasArts than Bioware, as they often control what constitutes canon. They did dictate that one specific playthrough of KOTOR1 was the official canon, when Bioware wanted to leave it so every version might be possible.

I don't see a Rakghoul retcon at all, AFAIK. From what I know of the mandolorians they haven't been either, I could be wrong, care to elaborate?

It may well have been Lucasarts doing it, I don't really know. I just know the end result.

Originally, the rakghoul plague was just a virus that somehow transformed sentients into rakghouls. It evolved on Taris and was just a natural part of its environment. In TOR, they seized on it and decided a Sith came up with it and released it on Taris as its initial test before never using it again for no apparent reason. Edit: Also, with the 1.1 and subsequent patches, they said that the rakghoul plague is apparently everywhere, when before it was specifically mentioned as being a Tarisian problem.

Also, Mandalorians were an actual species. A subset/evolution of human, most clearly demonstrated by the Fetts, but there's a few other places it's implied, if not explicitly stated in KOTOR 1/2. In TOR, they're a collection of every species deemed arbitrarily fit by some unspecified set of standards.

It's entirely possible that these weren't actually committed by TOR, but by some other piece of EU that I haven't seen, but they're certainly differences between KOTOR and TOR.

I can't remember the exact nature, but the Sith/Rakghoul connection was elaborated on in the Knights of the Old Republic comic series. No idea (obviously) if TOR is consistent with the comic, or if the comic explicitly retconned KotOR games.



Count me among the lapsed subs; can't say I'm surprised the game is having issues.

 

[LongMuckDong]

Ya know what's really upsetting sometimes.

When you really love playing an MMO, and you know it's not perfect, but you love it for what it is, and you have fun.

Yet all of the General boards, of that very game, are people cheering for it's doom.

It's unsettling, and disquieting, to say the least.

Captcha 'foul smelling'...indeed

You, sir, have summed up my feelings 100%.

I am a pretty big Star Wars fan (read some books, love most of the films, Kotor'd it up multiple times - even own X-wing) and a newb to the MMO scene (did 1 week of Guild Wars prior to SWTOR... true newbie status).

In terms of fun, I've had bucket loads - brilliant story, great guild, awesome gear.. loving it. So when I read doomsayer994 saying 'the end is nigh' over and over again, it kind of makes me think bad thoughts.

I'm not sure what type of bad thoughts, just a bit of a downer to be honest. Even with 1,000,000 ongoing subs - if they merge some servers ASAP (for the 'ghost server' peeps - that must suck!) and keep releasing content and new PvP stuff, we'll be just fine.

I'm off to keep on playing, good times people - with a whisky in my offhand (booze focus) and a razer naga in my right .

 

[Meight08]

The subscription model should keep existing but just dont have set prices.